The Professional Chef's Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Second Edition

To put this review into perspective for you, it is written by a serious student of cooking that has been actively studying food on their own for 25 years. I have been focusing on Italian food for the last 10 years. My favorite cookbook is "The Professional Chef" by the Culinary Institute of America.

This book is laid out as follows:
Section One: Healthy Cooking
1. The language of nutrition
2. The pyramids
Section Two: The Principles of Healthy Cooking
3. The elements of flavor
4. Fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes
5. Cooking with less fat
6. Moderating Salt
7. Sweeteners
8. Beverages
9. The techniques of healthy cooking
10. Agricultural issues in ingredient selection
Section Three: Creating and Marketing Healthy Menus
11. Menu and recipe development
12. Analyzing the nutrient content of recipes
13. Nutrition Labeling in menus and advertisements
14. Staff training and customer satisfaction
Section Four: The recipes

The book is geared to the professional kitchen. However, there is much information in this book for the home cook beyond the recipes. Many of the same considerations that the restaurant must address should be part of the menu development in the home.

If you are looking for ways to improve the "health quotient" of the meals you prepare your family, you will enjoy this book. All the recipes in this book have complete nutrition stats including: calories, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate, dietary fiber, sugar, and protein.

The book does a nice job of explaining smoking and the flavors given to foods by various wood chips. Their recipe for oven-smoked tomatoes (without purchasing a separate smoker, I used a heavy lidded roaster) was extremely easy to follow and turned out wonderfully.

The recipe section is more than 2/3's of the book. The recipes are developed for larger quantities than most home cooks will prepare. I have not had any difficulty reducing the size of the recipes to accomodate my family. The recipe for Risotto Cakes and Green Beans with Chanterelles was fabulous, as was the one for Chianti Granita. The recipe for pasta that uses only egg whites is also very nice, and versatile. Of the recipes that I have prepared so far, all of them have been very good.

I consider this book to be a valuable addition to my cookbook library. If you want to cook more healthfully, you will enjoy this book.

Reviewer: Amalfi Coast Girl